Only operating casino in Micronesia targets Guam residents, tourists

The $500 million Grand Mariana Casino Hotel and Resort is expected to open in early 2017. Rendering courtesy of Best Sunshine casino. Rendering courtesy of Best Sunshine casino. (Photo: Courtesy of Best Sunshine casino)

The only operating casino in the Marianas and the whole of Micronesia at the moment is targeting Guam’s 200,000 residents and nearly 1.5 million annual tourists to visit their temporary $25 million Best Sunshine Live casino in Saipan, with a package that includes a new three-times-a-week charter flight starting May 27.

Bradley Wilson, Best Sunshine marketing director, said Tuesday the package with a charter flight “creates awareness” about Saipan’s temporary casino and the opening of its $500 million Grand Mariana casino resort in early 2017, along with expanding tour option for Guam residents and tourists.

“People who want to get away for couple of days from the island (of Guam) and enjoy Saipan,” he said.

These include military personnel stationed in Guam, people living and working on island, and tourists in Guam who want to add another island tour to their vacation, Wilson added.

The charter flights leave Guam on Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays.

Both the $25 million temporary casino and the still-under-construction $500 million Grand Mariana casino resort is part of Best Sunshine parent company Imperial Pacific’s plan to build a whopping $7.1 billion integrated casino resort in Saipan.

Best Sunshine’s temporary or live casino training facility is located on the ground floor of T Galleria, formerly DFS Galleria, in the Garapan tourist district of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The flight between Guam and Saipan is about 45 minutes.

Best Sunshine is an exclusive casino license holder in Saipan for up to 40 years and is the only operating licensed casino in the CNMI, Guam and the whole of Micronesia at this time.

Casino operation is legal on the CNMI’s two other major islands of Tinian and Rota but at the moment, the beleaguered Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino has temporarily shut down with no reopening date in sight, while Rota’s previous small casinos fizzled operations just weeks or months after opening.

Wilson, who is in Guam to attend the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s international summit, said Best Sunshine’s package tour starts with a reception at Papa’s Restaurant near the A.B. Won Pat International Airport Guam at 4:30 p.m., and leaves Guam at 6 p.m. The flight arrives in Saipan at 6:45 p.m.

“And then we entertain them in our facility, our casino, in Saipan from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. and then they’re on their own, they can do what they want to visit all business and everything in Saipan and on that particular package on the 27th, they return back to Guam on Sunday by 5 p.m.,” Wilson said.

Wilson said Best Sunshine has established a partnership with the Guam Visitors Bureau and PATA, and is in the process of becoming a member of the Guam Chamber of Commerce. He said he has also met with at least four senators in Guam.

Best Sunshine International is a trading name of Imperial International (CNMI) LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd. Imperial Pacific, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, realigned its core business to eco-tourism, luxury property development and entertainment and gaming in 2014.

But the Northern Marianas Commonwealth House of Representatives and the Senate passed a Saipan casino legalization bill that was also promptly signed into law in early 2014, drawing lawsuits and criticism from community members who pointed to a lack of public hearing and lack of transparency in passing the gambling bill.